On Orion, the House leads, Senators follow

WASHINGTON — Though Colorado’s U.S. Senators busily lobbied this week to save the Orion space vehicle program — and the 1,000 high-paying Colorado jobs that go with it — they seemed less enthusiastic to back a similar effort spearheaded by Colorado House members in February.

U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, asked Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall to sign a letter to President Barack Obama two months ago expressing support of the Constellation and Orion programs when it became clear they were in danger.

“As members of the Colorado Congressional Delegation we are strongly committed to supporting the success of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and are concerned with changes in the direction of the agency reflected in your administration’s Fiscal Year 2011 Budget,” the letter began.

Neither Senator signed it.

While both lawmakers were involved in efforts to save the program this week — efforts which may have helped persuade the administration to retrieve Orion from the scrap heap — they aren’t saying much about why they didn’t join the battle earlier.

Adam Bozzi, Bennet’s spokesman, sent a short reply to the question, noting “overall the delegation got a very good outcome, and we’re grateful for the team effort.” Tara Trujillo, Udall’s spokeswoman, said her boss preferred a different tack. “We decided to take a different approach, by working with the Administration and NASA, and after speaking with the White House and meeting with the NASA Administrator it is clear they are listening, as we hoped they would,” Trujillo said. Perlmutter spokeswoman Leslie Oliver said she didn’t know why the Senators didn’t sign the letter.

There are other possible explanations. The Constellation program — of which the Orion capsule is a part — was targeted for the ax by a Democratic President after a blue ribbon panel convened by NASA found serious problems, including the fact that it was behind schedule and had been seriously underfunded by Congress. “An independent commission was formulated to study where the program was, whether it was capable of fulfilling what it said it was going to do,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Wednesday. “The commission — and, again, an independent commission — came back and said that was un-executable, not going to happen.”

Perlmutter’s letter put the Senators in the tough position of defending a program that had serious flaws at a time when Democrats are under pressure to cut waste from the budget. Yet by not signing it, they now look like late-comers in the effort to defend a key part of Colorado’s high-tech economy.

Obama is announcing today a solution that seems to thread that needle. Other parts of the Constellation program will be scrapped and Orion will be scaled down. Delegation members, including Perlmutter, Republican Representative Mike Coffman, Bennet and Udall, have scheduled a press call this afternoon to hail the news.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.